Queen Consort

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Most of the time, however, queen consorts have no real power. Most queens in history were queens consort; the other kind, queens regnant (queens in their own right), who inherit the throne on the death of the previous monarch, being far fewer in numbers. The wife of a reigning king is called a queen consort. The husband of a reigning queen is usually not called "king consort," although it was more common in Europe's past for husbands of queens regnant to become reigning kings (e.g. Philip II of Spain in England, Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme in Navarre, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Portugal, etc). He is normally called a prince or prince consort, as with the husbands of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.